I don’t even know how to begin to describe what Roger Federer has meant to me over the years. His first Grand Slam win – 2003 Wimbledon – just so happened to coincide with the summer I decided to start taking tennis seriously (once I accepted my ceiling as a high school baseball player was probably pinch runner). Over the last 20 years, tennis has given me so much. Some of my best memories from college are match weekends, road trips down to Iowa, just hanging out with the guys. Several of my closest friends to this day were teammates I met my freshman year. And through it all, Roger Federer was right there with me (figuratively speaking of course, as if it needs to be said).
For the past two decades, he always gave me something to aspire towards, both on the court and off. As a player, he was magnificent, so smooth and elegant. The game had never seen a player like him, and likely won’t again; his “Swiss Maestro” nickname was well-earned. And off the court was more of the same. A genuinely good person who cared about the game, the fans, his family. He treated everything and everyone around him with such grace and respect. Tennis couldn’t have asked for a better ambassador for the game.
The sport has not been the same without him. Not to say it’s been bad, not by a long shot. But different. His presence has been greatly missed. And that’s a huge reason why I thoroughly enjoyed the upcoming documentary, Federer: Twelve Final Days, releasing to Amazon Prime on Thursday, June 20th.
As the title suggests, it follows Roger Federer and the…final twelve days of career, from his public retirement announcement through his last professional match at the 2022 Laver Cup. It was originally intended to be nothing more than a fancy home movie, something for Federer and his family to look back on down the road, as they no doubt had a hectic schedule in these last two weeks. They were all likely to forget pieces here and there, and I’m sure they would be grateful to have something like this to capture it all.
(I was also crying here, this moment destroyed me.)
That home movie feel is part of what makes much of Twelve Final Days feel a bit – and I don’t mean this with any disrespect – dull. It’s a guy planning to announce his retirement. A world-class athlete beloved across the globe, sure. But it’s still just a guy discussing the timing of posting his retirement video to Instagram. It’s not exactly thrilling filmmaking.
But that’s also what makes it so perfect. As great a player as he was, as absurd as some of the shots he could come up with were, I don’t think many players or fans or analysts would call Federer a “flashy” player. That goes double for Federer the person. And Twelve Final Days captures that essence perfectly. Federer has always been pretty unassuming, and this documentary follows suit.
The drawback to that is that there’s nothing inherently exciting about Twelve Final Days. It was fun and heart-warming to see the other players acknowledge the importance of the moment, Nadal especially. But anyone who followed Federer’s career, and paid attention to this last stretch, isn’t going to learn anything new. There’s no new insight into who Federer is as a person. But you know what? Who cares?
You know what I was thinking about the entire time? The 20 years of joy Roger Federer brought me. The 2:30am alarms to watch him play in various Australian Open finals. And of course, I couldn’t help but relive the day watching his last match with my parents. I remember rushing to their house straight from work, being able to catch most of it. Just taking it all in, trying to grasp what I was witnessing. This was the first time I had seen an athlete retire that had this much of an impact on me.
And then the match finished and the waterworks began. Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, me. I couldn’t talk, knowing that even trying to say something would start a flow of tears I wouldn’t be able to stop. So I just sat there, letting the tears slowly roll down my cheek, saying goodbye to someone who was an all-time inspiration. And here I was, two years later, crying all over again.
When something can make you feel like this, everything else goes out the window. Twelve Final Days isn’t going to blow you away from a narrative standpoint, or from shocking revelations. But it plays perfectly on the emotional side of things. It reels in fans with heavy nostalgia, harkening back to Federer’s glory days, and allowing you to relive the extremely touching farewell.
As cliche as it is, Twelve Final Days is a must-watch for any Federer fan. I’m beyond grateful Federer decided to turn this into a full-fledged documentary, allowing his fans one last glimpse into his life, which he so generously shared with us over the course of his 20+ year career. And for that, there’s nothing else to say: Thank you, Roger.
Grade: A
Federer: Twelve Final Days will be available to stream on Amazon Prime on June 20th.
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